Chesapeake Rambler
Out There
with Fred Miller
M
any years ago, I lay on my back in the cockpit of my first cruising sailboat and stared up in awe at the annual Perseid meteor shower flying in at us on a dark August night. At anchor in a cove just off the Miles River, we were far from the nearest streetlight. The Perseids always appear to originate from within the constellation Perseus, hence the name. I have learned this just recently, but more on that later. The night sky wasn’t new to me, frankly. In the late 1950s, I’d stood in the backyard as my father pointed out NASA’s early 100-foot diameter inflatable Echo satellites, far above. Those were early lessons in the marvel of science and technology—and the unmistakable “You are absolutely insignificant, Earthling” vastness of the universe. Nothing will help one keep life in perspective quite so much as the realization, the very notion, that the starlight emanating from, say, Aldeberon (65 light years distant), or Betelguese (640 light years) left its source long, long before I was a twitch in… well, long before I was a junior sailor. Now, I confess to have largely ignored the stars for a long time, even after I started messing about in boats. I mean, the night sky was always fun to look at—for maybe about 10 seconds—in a vague and appreciative way. On several offshore deliveries, the overnight watch was one of those breathtaking skyfulla-stars events that one remembers fondly and vividly. I had learned some celestial navigation (but didn’t use it), mostly cruising the Chesapeake. Then 34 February 2010 SpinSheet
came GPS and news the Naval Academy no longer required its Middies to master celestial. The sextant became to many of us like a buggy whip or an IBM Selectric. It still worked just fine, thank you, but there were far more practical alternatives. Sailors of auld steered by the stars, but that was then; although the prudent offshore sailor still carries and knows the sextant. The sky was still up there for me, but like most people, I found terrestrial activities far more worthy of my attentions. It really is true, that most of us never really look “up.” Then, a life-changing event, out of the proverbial blue. On my birthday, just recently, Ursula presented me with a six-inch diameter telescope—“folded optics” Schmidt-Cassegrain design—with all sorts of digital bells and whistles, such as 30,000 pre-programmed sky objects, including all of the obvious ones. It was a mid-winter surprise, certainly, but what was transformative was how it has affected me and perhaps, how unprepared I was for this. I would say that my new scope has been the catalyst for my rediscovery of astronomy, but I never really studied it in the first place. Besides, I’ve got a great pair of 7x50 Steiners (same source, ahem) that are perfect for stargazing and bird-watching and picking out aids to navigation. What I discovered, as foolishly intuitive as this may sound, is how much there is to learn. Mankind has looked skyward for thousands of years, so it’s no surprise there’s a lot published and online about this subject. I’ve tripled my reading in the past eight weeks. When I’m not learning the stars and planets and an entirely new vocabulary, three or four nights a week, I’m out on the upper hot-tub deck, looking at the Moon or Jupiter or the Pleiades (which are truly amazing through binoculars, although I’d never bothered). In short, I’m spending a lot of time “looking up.” Frankly, with the low temps this winter, on more than one evening, I have wished I’d been born in April or May.
About the Author: Fred Miller spends too much time working on his 41-foot ketch, Julie Marie. Past commodore of the Eastport YC, Miller enjoys reading and gazing vacantly at the pretty boats and the pretty waters. Contact him at svjuliemarie@comcast.net.
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